The word autophagy originates from the Greek words auto-, meaning “self”, and phagein, meaning “to eat.” Thus, autophagy denotes “self eating.” The 2016 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Yoshinori Ohsumi for his discoveries of mechanisms for autophagy. Autophagy is a fundamental process for degrading and recycling cellular components. During autophagy, damaged, unnecessary, dysfunctional macromolecules and organelles are broken down and are recycled for building new cellular components. In particular, autophagy makes it possible to regulate, repair and eliminate proteins with a long service life in the cells, thus ensuring a control during differentiation and aging of human skin. Autophagy could play a role in skin care.
Resveratrol is well known autophagy activator. Resveratrol readily becomes unstable in an aqueous solution or under exposure to the air. Hence it is important to stabilize the oleophilic ingredients in cosmetics and external preparations for skin improvement and treatment with autophagy function. There are generally two methods to stabilize dermatologically useful oleophilic ingredients: (1) encapsulation method and (2) emulsified formulation method.
As multi layered encapsulation, the mimic system of skin barrier of intact skin has many of advantages such as skin barrier recovery, skin compatibility. The main ingredients of the skin mimic multi layered encapsulation system are based on the skin physiological feature and include, for example, ceramide, pseudoceramide, fatty acid. Cholesterol is the main ingredient in human skin, and is commonly used in the emulsified formulation method to stabilize the oleophilic ingredients. Cholesterol is an animal raw material, and, in recent years, the cosmetics industry is reluctant to use animal raw materials. Cholesterol can also be derived from yeast, but the production cost is high.
There is a need for an autophage activating resveratrol topical composition for skin improvement and treatment to meet industrial demand. The resveratrol topical composition with stable multi layered encapsulation system can induce autophagy. This will be efficacious for skin barrier function and also for skin's self-purification system which benefits sensitive skin and atopic dermatitis patients.